But there's something about Floridians and their propensity to try to ride out hurricanes that continues to perplex him. Heading into what is traditionally the most active portion of the Atlantic hurricane season, the state has so far dodged any major storms.

But that can change in a flash, often with deadly consequences.

"I think it's in our DNA. We're in denial. It's not amnesia. People remember the storms; they're just in denial that it can happen to them," Fugate told reporters Wednesday during a visit to his former headquarters at the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee.

"In Florida, and I've seen this, there tends to be a bit of an arrogance here that 'We've been through all these hurricanes, and we know what's going on, and we're our own experts, and we're going to make decisions based on our own experiences,'" he said.

As an example, he cited 2004's Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, which ravaged the Caribbean and parts of the state, especially Central Florida, causing about 3,350 total fatalities and $50 billion in damages.

"There were a lot of people that were on the fringes of these storms who were impacted by the storms but did not go through hurricane conditions, and they're in denial," Fugate said.

Fugate's more recent hurricane experience was last season's Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall in New Jersey and became the second most destructive storm in U.S. history after 2005's Katrina.

During Sandy, Fugate said, the public's propensity to not evacuate because they lived outside the center line of a forecast zone was exacerbated by tendencies to not pay attention to local flood projections. Many people thought they would be OK because the storm had been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone when it made landfall.

"Don't focus on the number [of the storm]; focus on the impacts," he said.

Fugate made famous the "Waffle House Index" – whether the ubiquitous Southern restaurants had reopened -- as his gauge of when the damage in a community was truly devastating. President Obama has asked him to stay on at FEMA through his second term, so there are likely to be more one-liners before his time there is over.

When asked Wednesday whether Floridians might be taking hurricane season too lightly, he joked, "Are we playing college football yet?

"When we start playing college football, we start to see the activity increase."

And when asked what he missed about Florida, the die-hard University of Florida alum didn't hesitate: "The Gators."